October 28, 2024
While other speakers at the rally veered into far right and fascist talking points, Phil McGraw focused on what he perceived to be cancel culture
At a rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27, television personality Dr. Phil’s endorsement of former president Donald Trump was arguably the most tame speech of the evening.
While other speakers at the rally veered into far-right and fascist talking points, Phil McGraw focused on what he perceived to be cancel culture.
According to Deadline, although McGraw previously declined to endorse Trump in an interview he conducted earlier in 2024, he did signal his support for Trump’s unfounded claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from him.
At the rally, however, McGraw abandoned this stance and said he was at the rally to “stand up for Donald J. Trump” before adding, “Lord knows, he doesn’t need me to stand up for him. He’s tough as an old army boot. He’s got lots of enemies, different groups that are scared, and between them, they have impeached him, indicted him, raided him, railroaded him, shot him, and sued him. And where is he? He is still standing.”
McGraw indicated during his remarks that he believes Trump supporters are victims of so-called cancel culture, saying Trump’s supporters are “canceled, intimidated, marginalized, excluded or even fired or boycotted.”
McGraw continued his defense of Trump supporters, remarking that “When you attack a citizen, and you use the power of the Internet, you use mob mentality, you incite people to gang up and cause boycotts, then it is beyond ugly. And that is what is happening in this country right now, and that is not OK.”
“There is an imbalance of power there, and it is time that every one of us close ranks. We have to stop this now,” McGraw said. “It’s time that we push back against cancel culture. It’s time that we push back against intimidation tactics.”
According to The Associated Press, other speakers at the rally called Puerto Rico a “floating pile of garbage,” called Vice President Kamala Harris “the devil,” and insinuated that she had slept her way to the top and essentially called for the elimination of Palestinians.
Trump himself repeated his claims that he will end the alleged “migrant invasion” if he is elected.
In addition to his comment about Puerto Rico, comedian and far-right podcast host, Tony Hinchcliffe, attacked Latinx Americans, Black Americans, and Jewish Americans, all groups Trump has been criticized for offending at various points during his presidential campaign.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Puerto Rican and a House Democrat representing New York made a statement on his personal Twitter account decrying Hinchcliffe’s comments.
“As a Puerto Rican, I am tempted to call Hinchcliffe racist garbage but doing so would be an insult to garbage,” Torres wrote. “When casting their ballots at the voting booth, Latinos should never forget the racism that Donald Trump seems all too willing to platform.”
According to CNN, the remarks also led Puerto Rican global superstar Bad Bunny to lend support to Vice President Kamala Harris. According to his team, it is not a formal endorsement of Harris.
In the video Bad Bunny shared on his Instagram account, which reached at least 45 million people who follow him, there is an emphasis placed on Harris’ criticism of Trump’s handling of Hurricane Maria in 2017.
“I will never forget what Donald Trump did and what he did not do when Puerto Rico needed a caring and a competent leader,” Vice President Harris says in the video, which Bad Bunny reshared multiple times. “He abandoned the island, tried to block aid after back-to-back devastating hurricanes, and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults.”
According to The New York Times, Trump’s rally was a “carnival of grievances, misogyny and racism.”
According to NPR, Fox News host Tucker Carlson alluded in his remarks to the great replacement conspiracy theory that underpinned the violent unrest provoked by Nazis in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, which Trump infamously characterized as having “very fine people” on both sides.
“People know in a country that has been taken over by a leadership class that actually despises them and their values and their history and their culture and their customs, really hates them to the point that it’s trying to replace them,” Carlson said. “They know someone who actually has affection for them, and that’s Donald Trump. And it’s requited.”
Trump also continued using fascist talking points, attempting to clarify his “enemy from within” motif from the past few months.
“They’re smart, and they’re vicious, and we have to defeat them,” Trump said. “And when I say, ‘the enemy from within,’ the other side goes crazy. Becomes a sound – ‘oh, how can he say’ – no, they’ve done very bad things to this country. They are indeed the enemy from within.”
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